In February, when a range of new faces were being cast for campaigns, it felt refreshing. But that representation elation didn’t last long. When women of colour weren’t being insulted by poor choice in product names, we were discovering that many beauty brands still don’t have a real firm grasp on what inclusion is and what it isn’t. We’ve been left with promises of shade expansions to come — or the introduction of, say, maybe three deep options — and pledges to do better. But thankfully, there’s a major mogul who gets it: Rihanna. And praise the makeup gods because last night she officially revealed her entire Fenty Beauty line.
News of the line has had us in a frenzy since it was first announced, but after last week’s teaser posts on Instagram suggested that women with a huge range of skin tones had grounds to get excited, we all gave up hope of maintaining any semblance of chill. It wasn’t just that the long wait was coming to an end that got us so stoked — it was that Fenty’s campaign, which featured a diverse cast of models, suggested that Rihanna wouldn’t join the ranks of brands that launched with a few dark shades and swore an expansion would follow.
Makeup addicts with skin tones like Duckie Thot to Camila Costa and 38 shades in between had reason to rejoice. Now it’s finally happening and we’ve got all the details.
Let’s dive right in.
A post shared by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Sep 3, 2017 at 5:23am PDT
Since Rihanna herself is larger than life, we weren’t shocked that Fenty Beauty is as well. At its debut, the line offers a whopping 91 items, including 40 — yes, 40 — shades of foundation, 30 magnetised concealing, contouring, and highlighting sticks, and a single stunning lip gloss. The shades for all the products are evenly spread across multiple skin tones. No shade is an afterthought. No one is ignored.
First up — makeup. The aesthetic is exactly what we would expect from Rihanna; sleek and modern with a touch of edge in the design. Of course, the highlighter singles and duos, contouring sticks, and brushes (more on them in a minute) are gorgeous to look at, but they’re also so much more than that. The very fact that a dewy, subtle inner gleam is the aesthetic focal point of the line seemed to say, imagine it in Rihanna’s voice, “shine bright like a diamond.”
Even the product names lean toward brightness. Killawatt Freestyle for the highlighter, Gloss Bomb for the lip luminiser, and Match Stix for the contouring sticks. As for prices, everything hovers around the “what you’d pay for designer makeup” mark. The highlighters and foundations are $34 (R436), the lip gloss $18 (R231), and a trio of contour sticks rings in at $54 (R692).
THE FAMILY. Drops tonight at midnight PST. www.fentybeauty.com. #fentybeauty by @badgalriri
A post shared by Fenty Beauty By Rihanna (@fentybeauty) on Sep 7, 2017 at 10:06am PDT
Fenty Beauty also brings us a vast range of tools (priced from $16 (R205) blotting papers to a $34 (R436) foundation brush), solidifying what many folks believed about the line before it even launched. Rihanna didn’t want to just make pretty packaging and tons of money. By offering nine different tools from the get go, Rihanna is putting the power of beauty into the hands of her fans. Really, it’s not surprising considering that brand reps report the pop star and fashion mogul’s goal with Fenty Beauty was to help her global fan base experience the same transformative power she found after trying makeup for the first time on the pageant circuit at 15.
It’s refreshing to see a celebrity launch makeup without only her own preferences or skin tone and type in mind. We’re not shading groundbreakers like Iman who have launched lines exclusively for women of colour. It’s been necessary for women of colour to create their own makeup, hair care, and skin care products because bigger brands, historically, don’t always bother. But Rihanna is doing something even more radical than embracing underserved shoppers. She’s gone above and beyond the beauty industry norm with a truly inclusive line as evenly spread across the colour spectrum as we’ve ever seen from a celebrity line. Fenty Beauty is the future of diverse and inclusive makeup. And as tiring as those two words have become this year, we like the sound of that.
Fenty Beauty launches Friday, September 8 at midnight and is available online at fentybeauty.com.
